The 15-member Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade agreement, which came into effect on Saturday, is likely to have a limited impact on non-member Taiwan, reported local media.
"Since Taiwan already enjoyed a tariff-free status for 70 per cent of its exports to RCEP's members, the impact on Taiwanese exporters would likely be limited," Focus Taiwan quoted Roy Chun Lee, senior deputy CEO of the Taiwan WTO and RTA Center at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research, as saying.
RCEP is a trade deal that was introduced during the 19th ASEAN meet held in November 2011. The talks, however, kick-started in 2012. It was signed by several ASEAN and non-ASEAN nations to promote trade in the Asia Pacific region.
This agreement is one of its kind for Japan as it enters into a mega trade deal with countries like China and South Korea. This deal is most certainly going to be a major one for Japan with the deal reducing the tariff that the nation pays on its exports significantly.
Beijing would fulfil its commitments to the RCEP and aimed to build the free trade bloc into a major platform for economic and trade cooperation in East Asia, said China's Ministry of Commerce on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Lee has said that it is unlikely Taiwan would join the RCEP anytime soon but he added that the ties between China and Taipei are at standstill, according to Focus Taiwan.
Many Taiwanese exporters had relocated their investments in the Southeast Asian market, said Lee, adding it is expected to help Taiwan assuage the impact of its exclusion from the RCEP.
Stating that Taipei should keep focusing on joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), he said that Taiwan should have a better understanding of what the CPTPP member states expect from the trade agreement in a bid to secure admission into the trade bloc.
With regard to RCEP, the country's Ministry of Economic Affairs has also stressed that Taiwan's industries are unlikely to feel any short-term material impact from the trade agreement.
( With inputs from ANI )
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